Video conferences and telephone conference calls often take place involving numerous participants. Unfortunately, in the event that a large number of participants take part in the video conference or telephone conference call, certain participants sometimes tend to dominate the conversation, and other participants become distracted or stop paying attention for periods of time. Because of the uneven participation, there is a possibility that the video conference or telephone conference call will not be successful. For example, in a collaboration meeting among different entities of a management team, it may be desirable for marketers, attorneys, and management to all engage in a conversation so that everyone knows all of the other participants' ideas about a proposed new product line. However, if the marketers dominate the conversation and the lawyers are distracted or are not active participants, then the conference call may not be successful.
When a debate or conference occurs at a single site among a small group of participants, such as candidates for a public office, a moderator may be physically present to control the flow of the debate/conversation. When the participants are physically remotely located relative to each other and/or an audience (such that they are out of range of ordinary human communication and discourse), on the other hand, it is difficult or practically impossible for one person to monitor the debate/conversation and effectively manage the communication flow.
There are systems in the art for monitoring the state of a person and providing feedback. For example, there is a system in the art for monitoring a driver of an automobile. Measurements of the driver's characteristics, including monitored head position, tilt, body activity level, eyelid blinking, breathing and body temperature are taken and, based on the measurements, the system can determine whether the driver is falling asleep or is otherwise too drowsy to drive the automobile. In the event that the driver is falling asleep, a corrective action may be taken, such as sounding an alarm to alert the driver that he/she is falling asleep. This system, however, is designed only to monitor a single person, i.e., the driver, and the decision regarding the corrective action to occur is decided locally by some processing device within the automobile.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common and well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention.